Troubling questions arise from victim's horrific past

Sunday

Aug 29, 2010 at 12:01 AMAug 31, 2010 at 1:04 PM

Eliza Benedict is a stay-at-home suburban mom with a sweet young son, a surly teenage daughter and an adoring and understanding husband. Walter Bowman is a serial killer who has been on Maryland's Death Row for 20 years. He has finally exhausted his avenues for appeal.

Eliza Benedict is a stay-at-home suburban mom with a sweet young son, a surly teenage daughter and an adoring and understanding husband. Walter Bowman is a serial killer who has been on Maryland's Death Row for 20 years. He has finally exhausted his avenues for appeal.

One day, an envelope arrives in the mail and shatters Eliza's peaceful existence. The letter is from Bowman. "I saw a photograph of you in a magazine," he tells her. "You are older now," he adds, "but I'd know you anywhere."

Years ago, when Eliza was just 15, Bowman kidnapped her, raped her and held her prisoner for weeks. While she was his prisoner, she saw him murder another girl. Police finally rescued her when they pulled Bowman over for a routine traffic stop. Her testimony put him on Death Row.

Through the years, Eliza successfully walled off her past, but Bowman's letter brings it all back. Why, she wonders, did this monster let her live?

Eliza loathes the very idea of any contact with Bowman, but he is the only one who can answer her question, and in a matter of weeks he will be put to death.

Meanwhile, the mother of the murdered girl, who has been impatiently awaiting Bowman's execution, has a question of her own: Was Eliza really a victim, or might she have been an accomplice?

In I'd Know You Anywhere, Laura Lippman takes us into the heads of each of these three characters, exploring their doubts, suspicions and terrors.

This is the 17th novel by Lippman, a former Baltimore Sun reporter and the new president of the Mystery Writers of America. Many of her books chronicle the adventures of Tess Monaghan, a Baltimore private investigator, but her stand-alone novels, including Life Sentences and What the Dead Know, are her finest. I'd Know You Anywhere ranks with her best.

It is a subtle and complex story of survivor guilt, revenge, family relationships and psychological manipulation. Bowman, in particular, is a master manipulator, although, after a while, the reader starts to wonder who is manipulating whom.

The book also explores the morality of the death penalty, but Lippman never preaches. Instead, she examines the question from the perspective of each major character while never hinting at her own view.